While tropical rain forests are a part of many other regions of the world, virtually all attention has focused on the Amazon. Here is the first documentary to range across the planet in search of answers to the vital question in the title. Filmed in a dozen rain forested countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as in the country environmental leaders claim is the biggest problem - Japan, the world's largest importer of tropical rain forest wood. Prime focus is on the human dimension, included are tribal people, new settlers, squatters, farmers, loggers, government, industry and environmental leaders. The video depicts why rain forests are vanishing, who is responsible, human and environmental results, the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of protection measures, and what else can be done to save rain forests.

Part 1: Values of rain forests, extent of global deforestation, effects on people and environment of Amazon logging, cattle ranching, mining, charcoal making, dams, new settlers. Indonesia's vast transmigration program. Economic pressures for the road linking the Amazon to the Pacific coast and the growing Asia market. Deforestation of Panama, effects on the Canal, and the connection to the Amazon highway. 43 min.

Part 2: Japan's controversial role as major importer of rain forest wood from SE Asia. Tribal people fighting for their forest: the Penans of Sarawak and Batacs of Palawan. "Saving rain forests" through sustainable management. Indonesia's "forests forever" public relations campaign. Eucalyptus and other plantation crops in Thailand and Cote d'Ivoire. Industry-backed social forestry in the Philippines. 35 min.

Part 3: Economic assets of standing forests. Debt for nature swaps, rain forest parks in Costa Rica. Ecology of saving small forests in Brazil. Population pressures and other human problems in protecting forest in Rwanda, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire. Deforestation linked to catastrophic erosion in Madagascar, devastating floods in Thailand. "Extractive reserves" to protect forests and those who survive from them. Panama's Kuna Indians as a model of indigenous people saving their own rain forest. 38 min.